Goodbye Stranger (2 page)

If she had French on Mondays, life would really be unfair.

—

The next day she wore them again.

“Un chat!”
Madame Lawrence said, pointing as Bridge took her seat at the very back of the room. And Bridge’s head tingled in the way that happens when someone points. But that was all.

By Wednesday, the ears felt like a regular part of her.

VALENTINE’S DAY

You paint your toenails. You don’t steal nail polish, though.

Vinny calls you chicken: all of her polish comes from the six-dollar manicure place. Every month, she puts another bottle in her pocket while the lady is getting the warm towel for her hands. You told her you want to be a lawyer and can’t be stealing stuff. Vinny rolled her eyes. Then Zoe rolled
her
eyes. Vinny’s eye-rolls are perfect dives, but Zoe always tries too hard. Her lids tremble and her eyeballs look like they might disappear into her head.

Your mother is shouting that it’s time to leave for school. You suck in air and shout back: “Just a minute!” You are not going to school. She doesn’t realize that, of course.

It turns out that, in high school, not painting your toenails is considered disgusting. You blow on your wet toes, little puffs. “So much for the freshman-year perfect-attendance certificate,” you tell yourself.

“What?” Your mother is standing in the doorway looking impatient.

“Nothing,” you say.

She squeaks about your flip-flops, how it’s February, but you tell her it’s fine, it’s not so cold, there’s no gym today, and nobody cares.

Really you are just going to hang out in the park until she leaves for work. Then you will come back home.

—

Your feet are ice. The flip-flops were a stupid idea—what were you thinking? The playground swings are freezing and your hands ache, but you hold on, walk yourself back a few steps, and let your body fly.

It feels wonderful.

The playground is deserted. It’s too early for little kids to be out, especially in February, and everyone else is where you’re supposed to be: at school. On your way to the park, you had to dodge Bridge Barsamian, struggling with a big cardboard box, those tatty-looking cat ears she’s been wearing since September peeking over the top. You sidestepped into a bodega just in time.

You lean forward and swing back, lean back and swing forward.

Straight ahead of you is the big rock where you played when you were little. There’s a divot in it, a crater where everyone dumped acorns, leaves, grass, those poison red berries if there were any. You poured them from your shirt-hammocks into the crater and poked the mess with sticks. “Dinner!” You’d all sit in a circle, and Vinny would dare everyone to lick their berry-stained fingers. She was always in charge—even then, before you understood it, her beauty was hard to look away from: glossy dark hair and full red lips. Snow White with a tan and a strut.

—

It’s windy on the little platform at the top of the wooden climbing tower. The short walls are covered with messages scrawled in thick marker, big sloppy hearts and dirty words. When you were small, you would swing yourself up legs-first, but now you have to stick your head through the opening in the floor and then hoist the rest. You certainly have grown, you tell yourself.

You sit on the rough plank floor and wedge your back into the nearest corner, the one that was always yours. You can almost see them, in their places: Vinny to the left, Zoe to the right. They’re not your friends anymore. They’re both other people now. The girls you can see looking back at you are gone. No one talks about these disappearances. Everyone pretends it’s all right.

Remember the time you found a beer bottle up here? It was empty, but the three of you took turns holding it, staggering around and pretending to drink—though never touching it to your lips; that would have been disgusting. You felt almost drunk for real.

Vinny’s father had been there that afternoon, seen you, and demanded that you all come down. He took the empty bottle with one hand and jerked Vinny’s arm with the other, dragging her toward a garbage can. She tried to cover, acting like she was just walking along next to him, double-time.

—

You check your phone. Your mom was getting into the shower when you left. You wonder if she has left for work.

You can see the sun touching the tops of the buildings across the street, making its way through the neighborhood like someone whose attention you are careful not to attract. It’s still shady in the playground. But aside from the loneliness, and the cold, it’s all exactly the same. If you keep your own body out of sight, you could be nine years old again.

ANOTHER BOOK ON TOP

When Bridge came back to school in fourth grade, after the accident, Tabitha introduced her to Emily. And then Tab and Emily showed Bridge how they drew little animals on their homework, in the upper left-hand corners of their papers, underneath their names. Tab always drew a funny bird, and Emily always drew a spotted snake.

They said that Bridge should choose an animal to draw in the upper left-hand corners of
her
homework, and then they would be a club.

Bridge announced that she was allergic to clubs, that she would rather be a
set,
like in math. Her mother had homeschooled her. Actually, a lot of it had been hospital school.

“A set?” Tab repeated.

“Yes,” Bridge said. “We could be the set of all fourth graders who draw animals on their homework papers.”

That night, Bridge thought about what her animal should be. A cat? A frog? She decided she would draw a Martian, with a circle body, a circle mouth, two feet but no legs, and three eyes.

The next day, she showed her Martian to Tab and Emily, feeling shy. But Tab clapped when she saw it, and Emily said “Awesome!” And then the three of them held up their papers in a kind of circle on the lunch table, so that their animals could see one another.

“Is a Martian an animal, though?” Bridge asked.

“A Martian is a
creature,
” Tab said. “And so is a snake. And so is a bird.”

And from then on, they were the set of all fourth graders who drew creatures on their homework. More than that, they were friends.

The next year, Bridge, Tab, and Emily were the set of fifth graders who drew creatures on their homework papers, and they drew the same things they had drawn before: bird, snake, and Martian. Their friendship grew stronger, like a rope that thickened little by little. On the Monday after spring vacation, Emily sighed, rested her chin on the lunchroom table, and said, “Can sets have rules?”

“Sure,” Bridge said.

“What rules?” Tab asked, suspicious.

“It’s only one rule,” Em said. “No fighting.”

“No fighting?” Bridge said.

“Yeah, just—no fighting. Okay?”

“But we have to swear on something,” Tab said. She put her second Twinkie in the middle of the table. “Let’s swear on this.”

Em smiled. “The magic Twinkie of no fighting?”

They each ate a third.

When middle school started, they were the set of sixth graders who drew creatures on their homework and did not fight. That was the year Em’s parents got divorced. The rope became even stronger.

—

In seventh grade, things were different. Not the rope. Other things.

First of all, now Emily had a “body.” Bridge could see this for herself, and Tab’s older sister, Celeste, who was in high school, confirmed it:

“Look at Emily with the curvy new curves!”

It had happened quickly. Bridge heard her mother telling her father that Emily’s “growth spurt” made her think of those silent four-year-olds who suddenly start speaking in full sentences.

Seventh grade had sports teams and foreign languages. Emily turned out to be not only the second-fastest runner in the grade but also one of the best players on the girls’ JV soccer team, and now even the eighth graders said hi to her. And Tab, who had always spoken French at home but almost never raised her hand at school, became kind of a know-it-all. Madame Lawrence, who was very strict, sometimes chatted and laughed with Tab before class. In French.

Bridge was horrible at French.

And then Bridge’s English teacher handed back the first homework assignment of the year. He had circled her three-eyed Martian and written
No doodling on homework, please. Next time I will take off points.

When she showed Emily and Tab and asked if anyone had drawn big red circles around
their
creatures, they looked at each other and admitted that they hadn’t drawn anything on their homework in the first place.

“You guys.” Bridge dropped her arm so that her paper slapped her thigh. “Seriously?”

Emily grabbed Bridge’s hand and said, “We’re still a set. We’re the set of all seventh graders who
used
to draw stuff on their homework.”

“And who don’t fight,” Tab added. “Don’t forget the Twinkie.”

“Right,” Em said. She looked at Bridge. “Forever.”

“And ever,” Tab said.

But Bridge understood that life didn’t balance anymore. Life was a too-tall stack of books that had started to lean to one side, and each new day was another book on top.

MAYBE

Emily had long legs, and her chest jiggled a little when she moved. She probably jiggled exactly the right amount. And it didn’t slow her down on the soccer field. At all.

“Wow, she just
exploded,
” Bridge heard someone say after Em scored a goal during the first game of the season. But she wasn’t sure if it was Emily’s speed or her body that was exploding. She and Tab watched the kids running back and forth in the knee-high dust. It was almost October but still summer-hot.

“So what’s with the ears?” Tab asked.

Bridge shrugged. “They’re ears.”

“It’s been a week. How long are you going to wear them?”

“I don’t know.” Bridge could feel Tab studying her, but she didn’t turn her head. “Maybe until it rains?” She touched the cat ears carefully with four fingers. “I don’t want them to get wet.”

“Are you okay?” Tab asked.

“Sure,” Bridge said.

—

On the last day of September, Bridge kissed her locker for the last time and Emily got a text from a boy. It had not rained. Bridge was still wearing the ears.

The text was from an eighth grader. It said:
S’up?

“Wild,” Em said.

“Are you gonna text him back?” Tab asked.

“Maybe,” Emily said.

—

On the first day of October, Emily got a text from a boy asking for a picture.

“Same boy,” Em said. “That eighth grader. His name is Patrick. Very cute, actually. And he plays soccer.” They were sitting against the fence after Emily’s second win.

“A picture of what?” Tab asked, pulling at the dry grass. She was stirring up dust that made Bridge want to sneeze.

Emily laughed. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not doing it.”

“Send him a picture of your feet,” Bridge suggested.

And so Emily took a picture of her dirt-covered soccer cleats and texted it to Patrick.

Ten seconds later, he texted Emily a picture of
his
sneakers.

“Ha,” Emily said, shoving her phone into her bag. “He thinks he’s funny.”

VALENTINE’S DAY

You should have known about Vinny. You
did
know. You’d known ever since that day last fall, when it was the three of you, playing one of Vinny’s games. You watched her blindfold Zoe, who sat obediently on your kitchen floor while Vinny quietly cut a slice from a banana, giggling and telling you to shush. She fed the banana slice to Zoe with a spoon, saying, “Don’t peek! Don’t peek!”

Then it was your turn. You sat smiling on the floor, blindfolded with a pair of your own black tights, and Vinny came with her spoon, laughing. “Open wide!”

It was a spoonful of pure cinnamon. You choked and ran to the bathroom to spit and spit and spit into the sink before you came out, smiling again, eyes watering. Ha. No big deal. At dinner that night your sister asked you three times what was wrong.
Nothing,
you said.
Nothing.
Until your mom told her you were just being a teenager.

A week later, you asked Gina if she felt like hanging out. She hadn’t gone to your middle school, and her sense of humor made geometry bearable.

Big mistake. Vinny’s eyes feasted on Gina’s clothes, her sneakers, her lack of purse. As soon as the four of you were in your room, Vinny clapped her hands and called out, “Tasting game!”

This time you got the banana. And then you watched Vinny feed Gina a spoonful of black pepper. She couldn’t stop coughing and had to go home, apologizing.

Gina was the one who apologized.

You were the one who let it happen.

—

You can’t stand this freezing-cold playground for another minute. Your mom must have left for work by now. You want your bed. You want to lie down and disappear. But first you have to get home: six blocks. You don’t want to have to explain yourself to anyone, especially anyone who might see your parents later. You tell yourself that it’ll be like a game of hot lava. Vinny used to love that game when you were little. She’d shout, “The floor is lava!” and leap from your couch to your coffee table to the chair your dad had shipped all the way from Paris because he said it was the most comfortable thing in the world. No one jumped on the furniture at Vinny’s house.

—

Your old middle school is hot lava.

Zoe’s nosy doorman is hot lava.

The Bean Bar is hot lava.

You cross Broadway and rush past the Dollar-Eight Diner, where the waitress still calls you French Fry because when you were little that was all you would eat.

—

You get to your building and decide that the elevator is hot lava, so you take the stairs.

Breathing hard, you put your ear against the apartment door and listen for a few seconds, just in case.

Key in the lock, turn, and push. You’re in.